The Askenazi failure

Every time there are elections in Israel, and the results are not satisfactory for some, it starts the search for the guilty part of the society. (Although I wish a lot, I prefer not to talk about the elections right now) Instead of focusing on the real problems and political failures, some (don't expect me to share any of their links) preferred instead to accuse the Mizrahi Jews because...they did not vote with the very confused and unstructured and unreliable leftist parties.
Lacking any inspiration and arguments, some returned to the infamous Askenazi Revolution (HaMahapechah HaAskenazit) of Katznelson. A book which I tried to read and found it libellous and extremely bad written and lacking not only argumentation - how can you have arguments for racist statements against your own people - but also the style of a good writing. The only explanation that such a literary failure was considered a success was probably the political ambiance of the 1960s when many Askenazim, not few of them of German origin, were sharing the same impressions and assumptions and Katznelson just wrote something that the public expected to read.
Ben Gurion himself, who forbade the book later, said in 1966: "We do not want Israelis to become Arabs. We are in duty bound to fight against the spirit of the Levant which corrupts individuals and societies, and preserve the authentic Jewish values as thez crystallized in the diaspora".
In April 22 1949, the journalist Aryeh Gelblum, an immigrant from Poland, wrote in Ha'aretz on the occasion of the arriving of Mizrahi immigrants: 'This is the immigration of a race we have not yet known in the country. We are dealing with people whose primitivism is at a peak, whose level of knowledge is one of virtually absolute ignorance and, worse, who have little talent for understanding anything intellectual. Generally, they are only slighty better than the general level of the Arabs, Negroes and the Berbers in the same region. In any case, they are at an even lower level that we knoa with regard to the former Arabs of Israel. These Jews also lack roots in Judaism, as they are totally insubordinated to savage and primitive instincts. As with Africans, you will find among them gambling, drunkenness and prostitution...chronic laziness, and hatred for work; there is anothing safe about this asocial element. (Even) the kibbutzim will not hear of their absorbtion'.
Being so versed into the racist German theories, result of the assimilation encouraged by the Haskala, made people like Gelblum more 'advanced'? The lack of roots in Judaism is the situation of someone who forgets about the long history of Jewish life in the Middle East, probably less assimilated then their brothers in the industrial Europe.
Years passed and at least officially, such standpoints are not the mainstream, except during and after the election time. Some people from the old generation, may still believe that their racism against Askenazim has any logical, cultural or historical, and even religious base.
A long conversation is such a discussion does have any sense does not make any logic. Just pointing out once in a while how wrong such conversations are is a must. The more we say about it and against it, the better for our sanity.

Book Review: Growth through Tehillim, by Rabbi Zelig Pliskin

I am reading regularly at least a couple of kapiteln of Tehillim for a long time already. Either on the road or at home, while taking a break from other writing or while the food is in the oven, sometimes even when I am in the train back home, I am taking my small book of Artscroll and have my private spiritual moments. This happens for almost 3 years now, and if by laziness or superficiality it happens to miss this meeting, I feel poor and often my spirit is low. Every day of Tehillim helps me to grow and get the strength that I need so much sometimes to go through the day.

Rabbi Zelig Pliskin beautiful book Growth through Tehillim is important though not only because outlines our need of spirituality and explain how to use it. For me, it brings into light an aspect of spirituality often forgotten: our goal to be better people. 

And I will explain what it is all about. For a long time, I was worried that I used to pray without kavanah, just reading words forming sentences, without a real spiritual concentration on the prayer. I need to keep praying till I was finally able to achieve a higher spiritual level from time to time. It works the same in the case of Tehillim. I am reading and focusing on the words but the realization of the spiritual message might came later in the day or even in life. 

Trying to be a better person and achieving that high level of spirituality and wisdom when you are able to consider everything is going on into your life as a blessing and you have the capacity to learn from everyone takes more time. Personally, I had to cope with a huge challenge of having around me people with toxic attitudes, very often self sufficient and over critical against everyone except themselves. Whatever efforts you strive to make for being a good person, when those around you are focused on the negative parts and refuse to be wise, it is hard to resist the temptation to follow your example.

Growth through Tehillim brought me back to some well practised habits in the last years when I made tremendous efforts to say 'good bye' to my negative attitude against my fellow humans and cultivate kindness and understanding for every human being. Every chapter of the book develops around a verse of Tehillim, with samples of Torah learning ending up with life stories that have the strength to inspire even more, because always we are curious to hear and read what other people from our times will do in similar situations with us. 

It is written in a simple yet inspiring way, and gives a lot of food for thought and reasons to decide that from tomorrow on, will try at least to be a much better person, with a positive attitude, thankful to Hashem for everything that we receive in our life and careful to count and be grateful for our gifts.

The Joys of Yiddish

On a bus in Tel Aviv, a mother was talking animatedly, in Yiddish, to her little boy - who kept answering her in Hebrew. And eatch time the mother said, "No, not talk Yiddish!". An impatient Israeli, overhearing this, exclaimed, "Lady, why do you insist the boy talk in Yiddish instead of Hebrew?"

Replied the mother, "I don't want him to forget he's a Jew".

Leo Rosten, The Joys of Yiddish

There is always something to remember

One day before the celebrations of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, on just another grey cold day of the usual long German winter, I was accompanying my friend for a walk in the West Berlin. It was the day of the weekly open fair in her area and we wanted to take some fresh air and reconnect with the street vibe, after her long sickness.

An energetic woman, a former survivor as a kid of the forced labour camps in Eastern Europe that succeeded to reach the shores of the then-Palestine before the creation of the state, my friend enjoys talking with the vendors in her impressive German. 

A lively ambiance on the streets, that defides the unpleasant weather, with mostly people in their retired years, curious about prices, ordering some Turkish products for the late lunch or just spending some time outside their homes. This is the usual mood and age spectrum in the conservative, quiet and predictable West Berlin.

We made a stop at the fruits' stand, with many tempting sorts from all over the world and we started to ask about different fruits and their proveniences. (Don't expect any bargaining at  these markets!) Suddenly, a chat between one of the vendors and an old lady starts whose topic I somehow missed, but anyway, it covered the very exciting issue of fruits and their production. Noticeable, it ended with the old lady sniffing with a casual smile on her face: "Hahaha Arbeit macht frei!" Mesmerized, we both stopped from debating how much does it last to bring fruits from South Africa to Berlin and starred in shock at the lady. The vendor kept laughing at her very good joke. 

We exchanged looks and cursed the witched trying to figure out how old was she at the time of the camp or maybe her genealogy too. 

But honestly speaking, all these details didn't matter, the indifferent smile and her self-contained sniffining when she said those words were enough for me, at least. It was just another example of a reality that you cannot touch it if you are in the full admiration of the cheap bubbling life of Berlin as seen from the bar and disco scenery from the English speaking Eastern Berlin.

Explaining Simchat Beit HaShoeva

At the end of the period of teshuva and the Day of judgement, the festival of Sukkot is the time of full. Compared to other festivals in the Jewish calendar - none on Pesach and one time on Shavuot -, the association between Sukkkot and joy is mentioned three times. According to Deut. 16: "And you shall rejoice on your festival and you shall be only joyous" and "And you shall be exceedingly joyous". "And you shall rejoice before Hashem, your Gd" (Leviticus 23:40). 

Source: Temple Institute

When the Temple still stood, the most important celebrations associated with the festival were Simchat Beit HaShoeva (Rejoicing - simcha - of the place - beit - of water drowing - hashoeva), the height of the holiday joy of the Sukkot. Not explicitly mentioned in the Torah, during the seven days of the festival, water was poured on the altar as a libation that accompanied the daily morning sacrifices, a ceremony called in Hebrew nisuch ha-mayim. Usually at the time, every day of the year, after the sacrifices were burned, an offering of wine was poured on the altar, but during Sukkot, the water was added.Symbolically, there were used water from Shiloh, from a source not affected by any human intervention. 

Each morning, the Kohanim were going to the pool of Shiloh (in Silwan), in the City of David, near Jerusalem, to fill a golden flask. Shofar blasts were greeting their arrival. The water brough was poured on the alter, at the same time with the wine. At the end of the celebration, the immense candelabrum in the Temple courtyard was lightened and it was hardly any courtyard in Jerusalem which didn't reflect its light. The Levi'im prepared the orchestra of flutes, trumpets, cymbals and harps to accompany the torchlight processions and the celebrations.  

The Tractate Sukkot (51:a) says that 'Whoever has not seen the Festival of Water Libation has never seen joy'. It used to take place every night during the Sukkot festival, except the first day and on Shabbes. The Kohanim, Levi'im, Israelim, elders, pious men and men of good deeds, all joined the celebrations that used to last even for more than 15 hours. Although it was not the Purim, many of the great sages were joining the celebrations, some of them in postures hard to imagine. It was said that Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel juggled eight torches and raised himself on hand stand with only two fingers. Rabbi Levi juggled with many knives, while Shmuel was able to hold eight glasses of wine without spelling the content. It is written in the name of Rabbi ben Hanania: "When we used to rejoice at the place of water drawing, our eyes saw no sleep", meaning that after the celebrations, they were ready to return back to learning and the service in the Temple.

According to other interpretations, the ritual was part of a larger inducement of rain intent. On Sukkot, the world is judged by water (Mishneh Rosh Hashanah) and "Day of the Rains are as great as the day of Giving of Torah" (Talmud Ta'anit 7a). 

Nowadays, the festival is held in the diaspora, but the height of the celebrations are in Israel, especially among the many Hasidic sects in Bnei Brak and Mea Shearim. Shuls, places of study or yeshivot, all are opening their doors to music and dances. One of the most famous are Karlin, Breslev, Toldos Aharon, Belz or Toldos Avrohom Yitzchok.

Simcha at Ponevetz Yeshiva

When Hasidism is fun. Their fun

Hasidism sells in America, but not in the good way. After TV-shows and pathetic articles explaining to a shocked audience the duties of going every month to the mikwe, something new is on the market: an show that starts with a discussion about the eruv and ends up with casual discussion about porn. Nothing wrong with discussing such issues - the last one, I mean - but not by exploiting the innocence of a guy you 'met' on Craiglist at 'platonic love' section. 

Part of her 'installation' about faith, Annie Berman got in touch with Hasidic 25-year old married mad, with whom she talks about eruv, her love life failures and daily religious life. The guy, speaking good English, in full innocence, is opening his heart to her, but for the sake of the art installation, the context and probably the social context of the guy doesn't matter. It's more important to exploit the conversation till it leads at the yellow media level, when he's mentioning sex and other things that for the outside world might look so exotic. 

What bothered me the most was to hear the tonality of the voices of the two participants at the dialogue: she, with the arrogance of self-assumed intellectual superiority and condescension versus the innocent guy, lacking a proper contact with the non-Jewish world but still ready to clarify and help and share his thoughts with someone out of too much loneliness, maybe.   

I have no idea if this discussion brought any high audience or clarified the author's - calling a journalist someone who promise a recorded conversation on one topic and ends up in a completely different direction is abusive - curiosity or big life questions. But for sure, the approach is not professional and lack a proper honesty of a human being approaching other fellow human. 

It might sound pathetic for the illuminated minds, but sharing such normal feelings like compassion, love and respect are the chore of the daily normal human interaction, Hasidic or not. 

What the next year will stand for?

Regardless how brave I pretend I am or how optimistically I gaze at the future, with an idiotic smile on my face, this beautiful 5774 was a year of failures. On exactly old plans, starting with this blog and ending up with the domestic mess. Nothing really went on as I was expecting at the beginning of the year. Nothing at all. 

Put into a larger life perspective, this was the most challenging year of my life and I bet will have a lot of more consequences to deal with in the next weeks and months. I'm not that naive to pretend that everything should go smoothly always, but not that pessimistic either to believe that it's perfectly fine that everything you want to do is deemed to a happy failure. 

Not even my terrible will to overcome difficulties and always survive is not it used to be, perfectly turned into small little pieces by the stubbornness to accept a very distorted reality. Probably I wanted too much and was used always to receive what I was looking for and the challenges of the last months were completely out of my usual context. 

Now, when I am done with the overexposure of the recent past, and still hope that things can be changed for the good, or that everything happened was always, but always for the good, I cannot be fully supportive of my dreams and plans. 

Does it make to plan anything after all? Not that I'm suddenly the prey of a dramatic turn of faith and entering a dark age stage of nihilism. As for now, I decided to take a completely new attitude to life: getting less and less involved in planning. After so much planning and worries and too much thinking about what will happen if, I decided to give up. This year, a shmitta year, I don't look after the fruits, just will go and on with my life.

Who knows?